


what never was, what might still be

by rainclouded



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, past sayolisa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28410108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainclouded/pseuds/rainclouded
Summary: Lisa thinks back on her failed past relationship, and maybe finds something new in the ashes.
Relationships: Hikawa Sayo & Imai Lisa, Imai Lisa/Shirasagi Chisato
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	what never was, what might still be

_It was a little earlier than when I normally got up, but I was wide awake. Feeling like I ought to do something productive with my extra time and put a little more effort into breakfast, I made to get out of my bed—and something held me back._

_"Sayo? You were awake?"_

_"Stay with me a little longer," she mumbled, in her disheveled, half-awake state, and there was no way I could say no to that. I lay back down in bed and cuddled close to her, enjoying the warmth of her body._

_"Imagine what all of the girls at your school would say if they knew you were like this. You think they'd be disillusioned? Or would they fall in love 'cause of how cute you are instead?"_

_Sayo didn't respond, only pushing her body closer to mine, and I figured that well, there was nothing wrong with sleeping in, was there. After all, when I woke up the next time, by my side, there would be—_

Nobody, as it turned out. I opened my eyes to the contradictory feelings of both clearly remembering the warmth of Sayo's body from my dream and equally clearly knowing that there was no one else in my bed.

That there hadn't been, for some time.

It was pointless, I knew—I'd long before blocked her number, to prevent me from doing something like this—but I still wanted to text her to see if she wouldn't come over and comfort me. If maybe, things could still go back to the way they'd been, before everything in my life seemingly went wrong all at once.

Of course I had memories, like the one in my dream, where we'd been the image of a happy couple, at least from early on in our relationship, but I also had a whole lot of the other kind of memories, the ones I wished I could forget but that kept inconveniently popping up in my head despite my best efforts.

_"You're going out in that?" she asks, wrinkling her nose at my outfit._

_"Is there a problem with it?" I reply, tired of having the same conversation over and over._

_"It's a little too revealing, isn't it? I don't want people thinking that you're a woman, with, well,_ loose morals _, shall we say."_

_"Fuck off," I say, and walk out the door._

Well, in that case I didn't necessarily regret what I'd said, just that we'd lost the ability to have a reasoned conversation. But there were a lot of times, too, where I'd clearly made the incorrect decision…

_"Hey, Sayo, who was that girl you were with?"_

_"A classmate. She was asking me for some help with the material on our latest exam."_

_"Hmmm," I say exaggeratedly. "You two looked awfully close to just be 'classmates.'"_

_Her eyes narrow. "What, do I have to ask your permission to talk to anyone else? Is that how it works? Should I submit a log to you of what I'm doing at all times?"_

_She ends our date right then and there._

The stream of memories was too strong to stop at this point. More just kept tumbling out of my brain.

_"Sayo, what did you want to do on Christmas this year?"_

_"Christmas…? Oh, actually, Tsugumi invited Hina and I to a Christmas party with her and the other Afterglow members, so I was planning on attending."_

_"Could we do something before or after that, then?"_

_"Is there a need for that? I have a few other things to finish that day, so I don't want to be too busy."_

_"It's important to me! Doing something with my girlfriend around Christmas."_

_She seems to have lost interest in the conversation. "Maybe some other time."_

And again, one last time.

_"Sayo," I ask her after practice in a somewhat pleading tone of voice, "want to come over today?"_

_"I'd like to focus on studying for exams. You should, too."_

_"Can't we do that together?"_

_"Last time you said that we got nothing done. I don't think it's very productive to study in the same room."_

_"Well, that might be true, but… can't we at least take a break sometime? I really miss being able to spend time with you…"_

_She sighs. "I understand how you feel, but it really is important for our respective futures to do our best on entrance exams. After we finish, I'll make sure to make it up to you."_

Ultimately, she never ended up making it up to me, because by the time entrance exams came around we were no longer together. I rolled out of bed, finally, and went to go stand out on the small balcony of my two-bedroom apartment. My roommate, it seemed, was not yet awake.

Among the unread messages on my phone was one from Rinko that stood out. She was the only member of Roselia who really talked to me these days. _If you're feeling up to it, we have a show this weekend,_ her message said. _I'd really like to talk to you again sometime, and I'm sure everyone else would too…_

This wasn't the first time I'd received this kind of message from her. She did well to keep sending them despite my ignoring of every single one, which I felt a little bit bad about… but I had no real desire to see who they'd replaced me with, and it was probably better that I didn't see Sayo, even from a distance.

After our relationship had ended I'd stopped going to Roselia's practices for a while, unable to keep facing her, and then eventually the wall had begun to feel insurmountable. I couldn't just return to Roselia and pretend everything was normal. So I told Yukina I wasn't coming back, and found a university in a location far enough away where I wouldn't just casually run into people I knew, and tried my best to start things over again.

Yukina still didn't seem to have forgiven me, which I probably deserved. I'd been a child. I still was one, really, but I'd been especially childish back then. When something hadn't gone right for me, I'd just sulked and cut everyone off, regardless of whether that hurt them or not.

And despite my attempts to start things over, I was still clearly stuck deep, deep in the past.

"Lisa. Good morning."

I'd tried my best to excise all remnants of my high school experience from my current life, but, by coincidence or fate, I'd ended up entangled with an old acquaintance. Sayo's former classmate, Hina's former bandmate, an actress who had suggested to me almost out of the blue that we room together once we realized that we were attending the same university. Shirasagi Chisato.

"Good morning! Did you want me to make you some breakfast?"

"You can make it if you'd like, but don't do it just for my sake."

I laughed softly. "I think Sayo said that same thing to me, once."

"You really are still hung up on that aren't you," Chisato said, a disgusted look on her face. Her honesty was, as always, refreshing. Blunt and rude, but always rooted in a place of genuine concern for me.

"I'm just hopeless, I guess. I need something to help me forget." I sighed. "It would be nice if I could fall in love with you, Chisato…"

"Stop it." She glared at me. "Honestly, I don't know what was so good about that girl in the first place to make you fixate on her this much."

I opened my mouth to defend Sayo and then closed it. After a little bit of thought, I spoke. "It's, well, been a while since I actually saw her or talked to her, so it's kind of hard for me to say. I feel like I've built up an imaginary Sayo in my head during that time, and I'm not sure which parts of her are real and which aren't anymore."

"Maybe hopeless is a good word for you." She turned around and headed back inside, blonde hair swishing. I followed her, closing the sliding door behind me.

"I think I'll make breakfast after all."

"Suit yourself."

As I turned the stove on I tossed a question in Chisato's direction. "Chisato, what exactly did you think of Sayo when you were in the same class?"

"I'd met her before, through Pastel＊Palettes, and had heard enough of Hina's stories about her to last a lifetime. To be quite honest I can't say I gave her presence much thought. She came off to me as too stiff and serious to be very interesting at all, although perhaps she was different around you."

"The stiff part of her was cute, though, because then if you teased her you got to see how she'd bend. And, well, yeah, maybe she was a little too serious sometimes, but I don't think she was like that _all_ the time…"

"Is that so." Clearly, Chisato had little interest in continuing this topic, and I continued making breakfast in silence.

Laying out bowls of rice and miso soup in front of each of us, I sat down. Chisato glanced up from whatever she was reading on her phone and thanked me, and then the both of us began to eat.

Something about this sort of scene I found infinitely relaxing. Being able to make food for someone and eat it with them was the sort of warmth and human company I'd been desperately desiring since I woke up. But still, I couldn't help but—

"I always wanted to eat breakfast with Sayo like this…"

Chisato put down her chopsticks and stared at me. "You really are a tedious woman, you know that? How long do you intend to make me listen to the same thing?"

She was saying that for my own good, I knew. Moving on from Sayo, from the past, was no doubt what I needed to do. But it wasn't going to be that easy. I needed something to push me out of this rut I'd been stuck in.

"If you kissed me, then I might stop talking about her."

Chisato gave me an incredulous look, and I stared back down at my miso soup. Even though almost a year had passed, I was still the same needy, obnoxious, clingy girl I'd always been. I forced people into uncomfortable situations and then blamed them when they didn't respond the way I wanted them to. It made sense that Sayo had gotten tired of all of it.

But after a second, Chisato sighed and beckoned me over. I obediently walked over to her side, heart suddenly pumping, and she cupped my face in her hands, pulled it down to hers, and kissed me softly.

"Do you feel like you can forget now?" she asked, expression as composed as it ever was.

"Maybe if you, um, did it one more time." I knew I was testing how far Chisato's kindness would extend. I should be happy with what she'd given me already.

But it was her fault for spoiling me this much. What was I supposed to do but want more? See, even now rather than properly rejecting me she was sighing and preparing to kiss me again.

This time was slightly longer, and left me really just wanting to drop everything I was doing today and give myself up to this.

She touched my cheek—maybe the first thing she'd done to me that could be considered tender—and in that same flat tone of hers said, "Terrible taste in women, really… you and me both."

"Does that mean we're a good match?"

She laughed derisively. "You realize that this isn't the kind of thing pretty enough to be called 'love,' right?"

"Well, love didn't exactly work out all that well for me last time…" The truth was, I just wanted, more than anything, someone to stay by my side. So no matter the terms, if that was what Chisato was offering, then I had no choice but to take her outstretched hand.

She stood up and kissed me one more time, and for the first time since Sayo and I had broken up I felt all of my worries fly out of my head.

If I couldn't forget all of the memories that were haunting me, maybe the only way forward was to forcefully overwrite them.

I wrapped my arms around Chisato's narrow shoulders and squeezed them tight.

**Author's Note:**

> i think lisa and chisato are interesting together--somewhere along the way it's turned into my headcanon that lisa is someone who chisato doesn't feel like she has to keep up a facade around, and vice versa. apologies to the sayolisa fans!


End file.
